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OFFICE 2016

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We’ve all heard the term “work/life balance” when it pertains to separating our personal lives from our professional ones. However, in some cases, the
two worlds can’t help but collide. Specifically, this collision occurs in the area of personal and professional organization.

Last week we discussed “Creating A Conquerable To-Do List”. Today we’ll talk about 3 ways to best maintain these habits in the two main areas of life,
work and leisure.

1) The earlier, the better: One thing we can make a habit inadvertently is slight, yet consistent tardiness. A
common text message that occurs right before meetings, business lunches or even family dinners usually goes something like this: “I’m really sorry,
but I’m running about five minutes late.” Five minutes may not seem like much of a difference, but you lose that time to ease into the interaction
and can sometimes make you feel on edge, especially if you’re presenting to an important client. Arriving ten or even fifteen minutes prior to an engagement
gives you plenty of time to breathe and prepare for whatever's next on your agenda.

2) Limit the small decisions: Some of the most successful people today don’t worry about the minute details like
what they will wear to the office or what they will eat for lunch. Some CEOs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg wear the same outfit every day just
because they know they need as much time as possible to make the decisions that will best impact their companies and customers. You can take this approach
as well. You don’t need to worry about wearing the same shirt day in and day out, but you can take some time on Sunday afternoon to plan out that week’s
wardrobe and lunches/dinners. And like we’ve discussed before, try and make the day’s to-do list before you leave your home for the day.

3) Know where to find important messages for your tasks: When you open up your email at the beginning of the workday,
you’ll find new items, old tasks that you still need to complete and even some irrelevant messages that you keep meaning to delete. If you work with
multiple clients, teams or tasks, be sure to create folders in your inbox for the different categories and make a conscious decision to put every message
in its appropriate spot while deleting the messages that are no longer needed. You can also do this with your personal email address when it comes
to messages from family members, promotional offers and electronic bills.

For more information on creating a personal or professional organizational strategy, contact leijun@campbellbusinessservices.com!

More often than not, our to-do lists take on the characteristics of our New Year’s resolutions.
We approach a new job or task with an intentional focus on being as organized and efficient as possible. “It won’t be like last time,” we promise ourselves.
To ensure that we carry out this vow, we create a to-do list. Even pulling up a blank Word document or flipping to an unmarked page in a notebook accompanied by the fresh ink of a new pen energizes us. We’re professionally invincible.
However, we at A Little Assistance know how easy the distraction come and how quickly a plan comes together and falls apart, even with the roadmap right in front of our faces.
Here are a few tips on a creating a conquerable to-do list:
1. Make the list before you arrive at the office: Each new day brings unlimited opportunities for both success and failure. As much as we want to keep work at work, taking a little time before you get in your car to prepare for the day can help you zero in on the most important tasks you want to accomplish. If you arrive at the office without a list (whether at home or an actual building) the “urgent” can quickly overpower the important.
2. Assign a time frame for each task: You’ve racked your brain and have noted down every single important task for the day. However, as soon as you get to the office, your email and calendar remind you of meetings scattered throughout the morning and afternoon. You try and take care of the little items on your list in a hurry, but you’ll usually end up putting the “big items” off until the afternoon or the next day. By isolating a time for each task in accordance with your scheduled meetings and events can keep you from experiencing surprises and experiencing a loss of productivity.
3. Complete one task at a time: As much as we want to flex our mental muscles by multitasking, recent research has shown that “single-tasking boosts your productivity”. Instead of splitting your energy on three different projects and making a third of the progress on each, focus on one task at a time. You might be shocked to realize how little time it takes you to accomplishment on assignment.
Those were just a few tips on creating the conquerable to-do list. However, if you would like more suggestions or have any other questions, contact us now at leijun@alittleassistance.com

As a supervisor or manager, you provide the motivation and direction for your team. You sometimes delegate the small details to others, but you take charge
in driving forward the overarching theme and vision for your organization. You want to provide the greatest service for your customers no matter how
big or small the task. To accomplish this, you must encourage your employees or team members to be consistent in all aspects of their position.

The key question you may be asking: “How do I even begin?” Let us give you five tips on promoting high performance among your employees on a daily
basis:

1) Lead by example - If you want your employees to complete a task in a particular way or to exhibit certain behaviors in client settings, make
these intentions clear in both your instructions and your actions. Be consistent in how you manage your own tasks and clients and be quick to correct
yourself if you digress too much from the “usual way” of doing things around your employees.

2) Offer feedback often with tact and encouragement - You’re probably familiar with the concept of yearly and mid-year reviews for employees.
While these do provide some direction in a sincere attempt to encourage positive achievements and to help curb negative behavior, they often come
off as ineffective because of the sheer amount of information delivered once or twice per year. To avoid any surprises, make coaching and feedback
sessions more frequent, either on a quarterly, monthly or weekly basis. Allow your workers to ask for feedback whenever they need it and be sure
to respond in a timely manner.

3) Equip your team with tools for success - Most of your employees possess some form of higher education, either a 2-year degree from a community
college, 4-year degree from a college or university or a Master’s degree in their field. However, people work a lot longer than they are in school,
so presenting them with opportunities of certification classes, seminars or even just a healthy dose of industry literature makes their job intriguing
and less monotonous.

4) Reinforce team collaboration - Most people played some kind of sport growing up to promote unity, the exchange of ideas and the willingness
to listen and/or compromise. These ideals shouldn’t change when one enters the workforce. Some of your employees stand out as the “stars”, but
reminding everyone that they are an integral part of the organization (even if some believe being “just” a receptionist or data entry clerk makes
them less important) is one of the quickest ways to boost company morale.

5) Recognize a job well done - Just like with feedback and coaching sessions, shining the light on employees for accomplishing both major and
minor tasks can encourage continuously high performance. You can make these recognitions publicly in a team meeting or company-wide email; you
can also offer a quick private message to the person who put in the extra hard work as soon as the task is complete. These are just a few ways
to encourage strong performance among your employees.

Worrying about what records to keep and for how long can be a headache all on its own. However, when tax time rolls around each year a lot of Small Business owners and Contractors find themselves with many Tension Headaches.

If you are a small business owner, there are certain receipts and documents that you should hold on to. If you have employees you are required to keep all your employment tax records for at least four (4) years after the tax itself becomes due or is paid, whichever comes later.

Listed are some types of important documents that business owners should hold on to for at least four (4) years:

I get asked quite often, what is the best way to organize my business/home files? In an effort to lend A Little Assistance, I have put together some basic suggestions to get you started. Get out your pendaflexes file folders, manila (or colored) file folders, labels and lets get started!
Start with a list of your major categories. For example:
Automobile
Credit Cards
Medical Insurance
Home
Mortgage
Etc.
All of the above will be your Pendaflex Folders. Now that you have all the Main file folders completed we can move on to the subcategories, this is where your manila file folders come in, label each file folder according to each subcategory. For example:
Automobile
-Car Insurance
-LenderCredit Cards
-Visa/ABC Bank
-Mastercard/123 Bank
Medical Insurance
-File for each family member, i.e. Johnny
-Suzy
-Flex Spending
Etc…
I think you get the general idea. One last little suggestion, to keep all my receipts organized I purchased a coupon holder you can label each slot with each month, and keep your receipts for your personal use for several months, or if it is a business receipt you can hold a whole years worth in one of these holders.
I hope you find this helpful.

If I had a dime for every time I heard, “I don’t have the receipt”, I think I would at least have a long vacation paid for at this point.
So what point am I trying to make? In researching the top mistakes that entrepreneurs and small business owners make when preparing for their taxes, the one that is repeatedly at the top was Not Keeping Proper Documentation for Expenses Incurred.
Even if you have a professional accountant handling your taxes, it is ultimately your responsibility to keep and organize the documentation for them. Whether you undertake this daunting task yourself or hire a trustworthy assistant/bookkeeper to handle this matter for you is up to you.
It is imperative that all receipts for expenses be kept. For example, restaurants, supplies, equipment, travel, etc. If an audit should occur these receipts are necessary to verify the purchase is legitimate.
I know what your thinking, in this day and age isn’t everything kept virtually? Well, honestly a lot is and things will continue to go in that direction. But we are not completely paper free yet. Here are some suggestions on how to organize the piles of receipts.
One of the easiest is to get a receipt box or plastic holder with dividers they have them in envelope size. (I actually got a couple of mine at Target in the dollar section, big investment, huh…). From there you can either stick with a monthly excel sheet with categories across the top, one for each month and attach all receipts for that month with it, or you can get high tech and buy one of those scanners and the programs that go with it that you see on TV. Once the set up is done for these the scanning and monthly reporting is no problem. It will make your bookkeeper and accountant’s life much easier also, which is less costly to you. The only easier way of doing all of this is to shove all your receipts in a envelope and hand them over to your assistant/bookkeeper to handle all of the above for you, which will be a little more costly to your payroll, but alleviates the headache from your plate allowing you to focus on more important business items. You could go with the shoebox method (believe me there are plenty of people still going this route) hand that over to your accountant and have his/her office deal with it and seeing a more hefty bill on you desk when it is all done and said.
The ultimate decision is yours but please take head on the receipts thing, it is more important than you might think.
If you have realized that you need help in this area of your business and you’re not sure where to start or what might be best, give us a call or email for a FREE 30 minute consultation.

Do you find yourself saying there is never enough time in a day? You feel as though you are a dog chasing its tail each day. Your stuck in the rut of doing everything yourself or not being able to see the value of paying for the help. In the meantime, you are lacking any personal time to refresh yourself and keep your focus. Not to even mention the lack of time with your family.
As a Small Business Owner (SBO) it is very important that you take just a few hours to go somewhere quiet and meditate on what is really important to you in your business right now. What tasks you are willing to give up and pay for. What your business needs at this time in order to maintain and even grow. If the paying for help is a scary thought for you, because your budget is already tight, think about how much you are earning per hour, and where that can be better used. For example, you are worth more by getting out there and developing the business. You are actually losing money for that newsletter, bookkeeping, administrative task by you taking care of it, instead of you developing your business.
A Virtual Assistant, Virtual Bookkeeper or Virtual Business Manager would be a great solution to these common problems. You only pay them for the task and time it takes. So for the SBO with commitment phobias to managing employees and dealing with the benefits, etc. This is the perfect Solution.
If you having any questions on what a Virtual Assistant can do for your business, contact us at A Little Assistance, WWW.ALITTLEASSISTANCE.COM

Cheers to all the Small Business Owners out there! A Little Assistance honors the over 27 million Small Businesses nationwide. According
to the U.S. Small Business Administration "More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business. They also create 60-80 percent of new
jobs in the country."

A Little Assistance would like to thank all our Small Businesses clients for their business. We also encourage anyone thinking of starting a
Small Business to live out their dreams of doing so and we at A Little Assistance will assist you in anyway we can.